The DC & Marvel Fandom Disparity

DC has found themselves in a precarious position that so much is expected of them, because of the history that they carry. Fans become uproarious when something on screen isn’t exactly as it was on the page. They fail to recognize that sometimes, these things have to be updated, modernized, or just plain changed to fit the time. It seriously puts DC at a disadvantage because no matter what they do, they seem to never make their fans happy. See the reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and, most recently, Suicide Squad. I purposefully use Rotten Tomatoes as an example here, because they have shown through time to be able to bring down a movie before it even hits the theaters. Coming out of Comic-Con, several attendees, press or otherwise, noted that some of the biggest buzz was coming from Suicide Squad. Rotten Tomatoes has angered the fans so much that a petition was created, and subsequently withdrawn at DC’s request, to shut them down. But I digress.

I pause here, because what has to be acknowledged is the meddling of Warner Bros. in the creative process. It is well known, by now, that studio executives, not the creative teams behind the stories that we want told, have dipped their hands in the creative waters and forced unnecessary changes that have led to films that were not as well received as they should have been. The sterling example of this is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It was supposed to be two films with a fleshed out story for both that unified and had on larger arch. WB was in such a hurry, that they said nope, make it one, squish them together, get there faster. Anyone who saw the film in theaters walked out saying they thought they had just watched two completely different movies. Then when we got to see the extended edition (read: real cut of the film), it all made so much more sense and was immeasurably a better film.

Umberto Gonzalez’s tweet summed it all up best, in response to critical reaction to Suicide Squad.